Reliquary (Reliquary Series Book 1) (21 page)

“Thank you, Rose. You will call me sir,” Asa said. “Eve, close the door and stay where you are.” Without looking back at me, he walked toward Rose, towering over her. “On your knees.” His voice was quiet, but full of command. He set his duffel, toolbox, and briefcase on the metal table.

Rose knelt immediately, letting her gaze stray up his long legs. She bit her lip as she looked at his crotch, and her hand rose like she wanted to reach for his belt. Asa caught her fingers a few inches from the front of his pants. “Look at me.”

She tilted her head up. “Yes, sir?”

He gestured at his body. “Off-limits. Got it? Touch me and there will be consequences.”

It could have just been me, but she looked a little intrigued by the prospect. Still, her “Yes, sir” came quickly.

“Good girl. I’m going to give you a present.”

She smiled up at him as if he were sunlight, and he stroked her cheek. She leaned into his touch. My stomach tightened. I knew Asa knew how to play people, but there was something about the gentle slide of his thumb over her skin that made me feel uneasy in a way I couldn’t understand.

“Eve, come over here and get on the bed.”

It took me a second to get my feet moving, and when I did, my ankle buckled and I wobbled on my stilettos, which clicked like gunshots as I walked across the floor. He hooked his finger in my collar and caught me before I reached the bed. “How do you answer me?” he said softly, staring straight ahead.

“Yes, sir.” I hopped up on the bed, reminding myself that this was a show. We were doing it for Rose, so she would help us do this job. All an act. All an act.

“Lie on your back,” Asa said.

All an act. “Yes, sir.”

Asa looked down at the beautiful, nearly naked woman kneeling before him. “I want you to tie up Eve for me, Rose. Would you like that?”

My eyes flew wide. “Um, As—?” I clamped my lips shut as his eyes lasered into mine.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.” We’d only just gotten there, and I didn’t want to break down now after insisting we do this, but as Asa reached into his bag and pulled out a set of ropes, I nearly lost it. Being tied down went way beyond a simple game of pretend. “No, wait. Sir.”

Asa looked up at me again. “Eve, would you like to know why we’re tying you up?”

Because you’re a sick bastard who’s enjoying my fear?
I nearly threw that bomb. My heart was drumming in my chest. But I still managed to say, “Yes, sir.”

“When this transaction begins, you’re going to lose control of your body. And when you lose control, you will thrash. You could easily break a bone or two. But beyond that, if I don’t secure you and Rose first, you might lose skin contact midtransaction. And if that happens, we’re all fucked. The magic could splinter, or be lost, or cause unnecessary damage to both of you. Do you want that to happen?”

“No . . . sir,” I added when his eyebrow arched.

“Good. Rose, get to work.” He pulled her to her feet, revealing that her lace panties were held together in the back by a few crisscrossing strings and nothing more. He gave her a sharp smack on the butt, and she moaned.

“How you want her, sir?” Rose asked in a quiet, sweet voice as she accepted a coil of rope.

“Cuffed, raised over her head, and secured,” Asa said, heading for the foot of the bed with another section of rope in his hands.

Rose stood at the edge of the bed and smiled as she looked over my body. “She is lovely, sir.”

“You may speak directly to Eve.”

Rose met my eyes. “Lovely reliquary. Very nice. I like.”

I tried for a friendly smile, but I could feel Asa looping rope around my ankles and securing it to the bar at the foot of the bed, and it was all I could do not to scream. I raised my arms above my head, just wanting to get this over with. “Thanks, Rose. You-you’re lovely, too. Go ahead?”

She proceeded to wrap the rope around my wrists while I held them several inches apart, and then she wound the rope around the coils, creating a sort of cuff with this spiral of rope connecting it. I winced as she wrenched it tight and tied the end of the rope around one of the bars on the headboard. “All tied, sir,” she said to Asa.

I tried to shift and bend my knees, but Asa had done his job, and I was basically immobile. Helpless. And my wrists . . . “Ow,” I whispered.

Asa’s dark head snapped up. “Ow?” He stalked over to the head of the bed, his gaze on my wrists. “Rose, this is too tight.”

She bowed her head, but I could see the faint smile pulling at her lips. “So sorry, sir.”

His nostrils flared. “I’m going to fix this, and then I’m going to punish you. Her hands are already turning red.” His voice was a knife. “Back on your knees. Keep your eyes on the floor.”

Rose dropped to her knees in an instant, and Asa blocked my view of her a second later.

I looked up at him as he loosened the coils of rope around my wrists, creating more wiggle room.

“Thank you, sir.” My voice cracked over the words.

His eyes met mine, and I wanted to beg him.
Be nice to me. Please. I’m so scared.
Just a little softness was all I wanted. A little reassurance. Anything but Asa’s hard edges. And I wonder if he knew that. I wonder if the choice to deny me those things on my terms was easy for him, if he knew what would happen if he did, and how it would change things between us forever. Because he leaned down and said, “You chose this.”

“I know.”

“I’m meeting your needs, aren’t I?”

I swallowed hard. “I—”

“I think it’s time for your gag.” He reached over and pulled out a rubber ball connected to two strips of leather. He held it up for me to see. “When the magic enters you, you’re going to scream, Eve. We don’t want to disturb anyone, do we?”

“Please, no . . .”

His fists slammed into the mattress on either side of my arms, and I closed my eyes and tried to shrink into myself. “Look at me,” he snapped.

I opened my eyes, and his face was right over mine. “I’m going to get you through this, Eve. Do you believe that?”

I stared up at him, at his high cheekbones and dark hair, the face I had started to look for when things went to hell. He’d brought more scary into my life than I’d ever experienced before, but he’d never left me behind. He could have easily given Keenan the relic and accepted the bounty, which was obviously millions more than he was getting for taking it home to Brindle. He could have let Keenan shoot me. But instead, here we were, because this was the only way to do what I had
insisted
on doing. Asa had taken control and made it possible. And as I looked into his eyes, that understanding broke off a little piece of me, something that would never be mine again. I could feel it cracking and splitting, and I fell with it. Fighting was pointless and stupid and unnecessary. We were on the same side, with the same goal. I needed him.

“You’re going to get me through this,” I said.

He nodded. “And that means you can let go. It means you trust me. It means you can focus on what you have to do, because you know I’m handling the rest.” His nose was almost touching mine. “You got that?”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “You’re in control, sir.”

Something shifted behind his eyes, primal and deep. His gaze slipped from mine and traced the line of my neck, adorned with the collar, my chest, my waist and hips, my legs, like he was taking it in, accepting all of me as his responsibility. Slowly, he returned his attention to my face. “Open your mouth.”

I obeyed, and he laid the rubber ball between my lips and buckled the gag behind my head, checking the tightness by slipping his fingers beneath the strap before laying my head on the pillow again.

“Good girl, Eve,” he murmured, toying with the ring on my collar as we stared at each other. I had no idea what was going on in his mind, but mine was full of pleas, for him to carry me through, to do what he needed to do. He’d said he was my dealer, and hope was my drug, and now he had me, body and soul.

Asa tore his gaze from mine and backed away from the bed. I raised my head, not ready for the moment to be over yet. Then my gaze reached his pants, where the thick bulge of his erection was obvious. Shock jolted me. A few hours ago, I’d thought I understood him, and now I was more confused than ever. Asa’s eyes locked with mine again, glinting with defiance and challenge. He made no attempt to turn away or hide. He just stood there and let me look.

“Rose,” he said, his voice low. “Time for your punishment.”

He went over to his toolbox and opened it up, laying out his tools with the precision of a surgeon. A pair of shears, latex gloves, a set of tongs, a roll of thick red tape, the relic, and a small whip with dozens of thin leather strands.

“Get up and bend over the bed,” he said to her, and she eagerly complied, leaning over until her hair tickled my thigh. “I think five lashes is fit for your disobedience.”

Rose spread her arms and smiled. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Asa raised the whip, pulling the strands tight before letting them drop with a sharp smack across the middle of Rose’s back. I flinched as she cried out. Red stripes flared on her pale skin as he raised the whip again. It was over quickly, by which time her face was torn between ecstasy and pain. “Thank you, sir,” she said again.

“Do you want a gag, too, baby?”

“Please, sir,” she whispered.

He retrieved another gag, and after he buckled it, slipped his fingers under the leather strap and used it to pull her upright. He was close behind her, so close that she could probably feel him hard against her exposed backside. The sight made my breath hitch.

“You need something from me,” he said quietly, reaching around to take hold of her chin and tip her head back onto his shoulder. His long fingers wrapped around her throat.

Her nod had a frantic, eager edge to it.

“Palms on the bed. Lift them even a fraction of an inch, and I stop.”

She complied instantly.

“You want Eve to watch, don’t you, Rose? You want her to see what I do to you.”

Another nod.

He twisted his hand in her ponytail and pulled her head to the side. And then, as his mouth descended on the junction of her neck and shoulder, his eyes found mine again. I whimpered as his teeth fastened onto her skin, as his hand closed over one of her bare breasts, as her squeal was stifled by the gag. Inexplicable tears stung my eyes as his other hand slid down her stomach and disappeared from my view beneath the edge of the bed. She convulsed and moaned with pleasure, her pelvis undulating. He held her there—sucking and biting at her neck, his hands claiming every inch of her—and never took his eyes off me.

I was caught, unable to tear my gaze from Asa’s as Rose’s muffled cries reached a fever pitch. She was writhing in his grip, coming apart only a few feet away. Her palms slid against the leather, but she seemed determined to keep them there, desperate for him to keep going.

And I was, too. Tight and wet and tingling, suddenly I
was
grateful that I wasn’t Mattie right now, that I was Eve, that I was just here in this place, with no past and no future, because I couldn’t find my will to resist. The need was too strong, the lure too great. I could almost feel the press of his hips to her back, the slide of his tongue along her skin, the sharp nip of his teeth, the firm stroke of his fingers. My hips rose as my muscles tensed, as my body flexed, as my own teeth dug into the hard rubber of the ball between my lips. Dimly, I knew I shouldn’t be affected, that I should be able to look away, but Asa was in control, and I had surrendered, and even though he hadn’t laid a finger on me, I was still about to come.

Then he stopped, lifting his head and pressing his mouth to Rose’s ear. “You ready?”

She opened her eyes and nodded, her sweat-slick cheek sliding against his, adoration plain on her face.

He pulled his hands from her body and grabbed the red tape, and a few seconds later, he’d taped her hands to my thigh, palms down as she leaned all her weight on the bed. As I panted, unable to rid myself of the spiraling, tight feeling low in my belly, Asa opened his black briefcase and pulled it closer, and I caught a glimpse of what was inside—a portable defibrillator, like the one we kept in our kitchen back in Sheboygan, in case Ben ever needed it. The sight sent a drop of pure terror straight to the base of my spine, cooling the heat. Tools within reach, Asa slid on the latex gloves, picked up the tongs, and approached the relic as if it were a poisonous snake. A drop of sweat trickled down his cheek as he pried at the clasp on the pendant.

It was happening. We were going to do it right now. And these, I realized, might be my last few coherent moments. Silenced, tied up and unable to move, all I could do was stare at the man who had promised to carry me through. In the space of that minute, no one else existed for me but him. Like he felt it, he paused and looked over at me. His mouth tightened, and he nodded. Maybe a reassurance, maybe a good-bye.

Then he flicked the clasp open. Grimacing, he used the tongs to pluck a small, knobby lump of gold from inside the pendant and quickly brought it over to Rose. “I’ve got everything here we might need,” he said to her. “I’ve got you.”

Rose nodded again, laying her head on my thigh, her fingers digging into my flesh. Her hair was silk against my skin. Every beat of my heart was like a bomb blast. Every thought was a prayer.

Asa lifted the edge of Rose’s bra and slid the relic under the fabric.

My vision went white as agony blasted up my leg and into my chest, shredding my insides with pure annihilation.

CHAPTER TWENTY

It turns out there’s only so much pain a mind can take before it simply shuts down. Like a circuit breaker, maybe. But it takes a lot of agony to get there. I honestly can’t remember how long it went on. I only remember being certain that my entire body was being dipped in molten metal, that my bones were splintering and sparking, that my marrow was on fire. There was no part of me that didn’t feel it, no place to run or escape, no safe corner of my thoughts where I could hide. It consumed everything, sight and sound and smell and touch, thought and wish, hope and memory.

Then it spiraled tighter, pulling itself from my limbs, wrenching itself from my spine, swirling in my chest like a whirlpool until it abruptly reached a point, like a sword stabbing straight through my heart, like all the hurt had focused on that one soft spot and was rending cell from cell, atom from atom.

And then it stopped. Gone. Done. I floated in a haze of numb relief. The absence of pain was a release unto itself. It was all I could feel, all I was aware of. Like no bad things could find me. I vaguely felt a pressure on my neck, my body being jostled, but it didn’t hurt, so I didn’t care.

It was the beeping that brought me back to reality.

I opened my eyes to see Asa using the defibrillator on Rose, who was lying spread-eagled on the floor, red tape dangling from her wrists, her bra cut away. Shears lay discarded next to Asa’s feet. His movements were sharp and economical as he laid the pads on her now completely bare chest and pressed the button for the shock. She jerked slightly, and then the machine beeped again and Asa began chest compressions.

The second shock brought her around. Her eyelids fluttered and a tear slipped down her cheek. Asa turned her onto her side and leaned over her, murmuring softly, stroking her arm, and then motioned to Mistress D, who I suddenly realized was now standing in the doorway. As soon as the woman knelt at Rose’s side, Asa got up and came over to me. His face sheened with sweat and there were circles under his eyes, but his hands were steady as they slid into my hair to unbuckle the gag.

“How’d I do?” I whispered as soon as he removed it.

“Fucking incredible.” He brushed a loose curl off my brow. “But now we have to get out of here.”

With a few deft pulls, he untied the ropes and freed my wrists, then did the same with my ankles. He returned to my side as I worked my jaw to ease the soreness, and held up the ball gag to show me the teeth marks I’d left. “You would have bitten off your own tongue.”

“Thanks for not mentioning that possibility before.”

“Part of the deal,” he said. “You didn’t need one more thing to worry about.”

He packed up his tools and equipment, then picked up the toolbox and shouldered the duffel, but left the defibrillator on the floor, where Mistress D was helping Rose sit up. A dark bruise at the junction of her neck and shoulder stood out stark on her creamy skin. Asa ran his hand over her head and let her lean on his leg for a moment while he caressed her cheek, then nodded at the mistress, who pulled Rose away.

I watched Asa coming toward me, tall and lean and dark. The gauzy fog of numbness started to clear as I remembered the moments before I had been plunged into agony. His hips canted against Rose’s backside. His hand down the front of her panties. His mouth on her neck. His eyes on mine.

Oh God.

Asa slid his free arm around my waist and helped me off the bed. He didn’t let me go after my feet hit the floor, either. Instead, he guided me out the door, down the stairs, out of the club, and into a waiting taxi, where he started to pull me close. I picked up his scent, sweat and sex, and I couldn’t handle it—I put my hands on his chest and pushed him away as my throat constricted.

I reached up and clawed at the collar. “Take this off me. I need it off
now
.”

Asa unfastened it and slid it into his bag without comment.

“Where are we going?”

“I got us a room at a hotel near the airport,” he said as the driver sped down a wide, tree-lined road free of the high-rises we’d been surrounded by.

A room. As in
one
room? My heart stuttered. I was Mattie again, and I was engaged to a wonderful man named Ben, and the memory of watching his brother pleasure a woman—and, if I was brutally honest, wishing
I
were that woman—was crashing down on me, burying me in guilt.

“We just plugged a shitload of ancient Strikon magic into your body. I’m going to take care of you tonight.”

The driver turned onto a narrow road with no sidewalks, hemmed in by thick tropical vegetation on one side and car parks and apartment buildings on the other. The hotel was maybe five or six stories, an outdoor stairwell winding up one side, rooms all lit up bright despite a dingy exterior. Asa paid the driver and got out, holding the door for me and offering his hand.

I didn’t take it. God, what had happened in the last few hours? Had I only done what I had to, or had I let it go too far? Had I
cheated
on Ben? Tears burned in my eyes, and I kept my head down as I walked through the doors of the hotel. Asa caught up with me. “Mattie, it’s just for one night, and you—”

“We need two rooms.” What had I done? I’d laid my soul bare for Asa. Ben’s
brother
. I’d surrendered completely to a man who was not my fiancé. How could that be anything other than cheating? I clamped my eyes shut, forcing down a sob. “I can take care of myself.”

Asa sighed and asked the guy behind the front desk for another room, his knuckles tight over the handle of his toolbox. He tossed one of the keys at me and I fumbled it, nearly falling as I tried to bend over in my stiff corset. Asa scooped the key from the floor. “Right. You’re absolutely fine,” he muttered, then took my upper arm and led me to the stairs. “You’re on two. I’m on four. It was the only room left.”

“Good. Thanks.” I needed him as far from me as he could get right now. I needed to think things through.

We reached my room and he opened the door for me, then walked in and pulled a pair of sweat shorts and a T-shirt from his duffel, along with a pair of sandals. “It’s all I have for you, but I’ve seen you wear stuff like that before and figured it would be comfortable . . .” His voice faded to nothing as he looked me over. “Let me untie the corset for you.”

“No,” I whispered.

He rolled his eyes. “You’re being stupid.”

“Seriously? Just get out.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face and ran them through his hair. “Goddammit, Mattie, you can barely even stand up, and all I’m—”

“Get out!” I shrieked, shaking all over as I pointed to the door.

“If that’s how you want to do it.” He stalked out the door, slamming it behind him.

I sank to the bed, letting the tears come. The last few hours had pulled me apart and rearranged me, and now I was trying to slide the pieces into place again, but they weren’t fitting the way they used to. And yet I couldn’t wish all of it away, because I had done it for Ben. For the man I loved. It had worked—I had this ancient magic in my little vault. Somewhere inside me lay enough pain to destroy people. To stop someone’s heart, like it had stopped Rose’s. Now I just had to carry it home, put it back in the relic, and give it to Brindle . . .

We had to put it back in the relic. I had to do this all over again.

I pushed that thought down a deep hole, because if I focused too closely on it, I knew I would break. With faltering hands, I yanked off the boots, then spent several minutes rolling on the bed, trying to undo the stupid knots Asa had tied at the back of the corset. By the time I succeeded in getting them undone, I was sweating and crying and aching. Something inside me felt like it had shifted and was teetering at the edge of a cliff, one stiff breeze from going over the edge. This wasn’t like the sloshy aquarium feeling I’d had in the first few transactions. This was fundamentally unsteady, hard and huge and threatening. Was that my emotional state? Or the magic? What would happen if it fell? What would happen when it hit bottom?

I frowned and rubbed at my chest. “You’re a vault,” I whispered.

What happened if the vault got dropped off a cliff? Asa said I had control . . . but what if I couldn’t hold on to it?

“Stop.” I limped into the bathroom and rinsed myself off with cold water, not able to summon the energy to shampoo my hair. My limbs were leaden with exhaustion, and I had no idea when Asa would be back, banging on my door and telling me to get my little legs moving. I needed to sleep. I needed to stop thinking.

Especially about him.

I nearly wept with gratitude when I walked back into the room and saw that Asa had laid a small bag with a toothbrush and toothpaste next to my clothes. After brushing my teeth and pulling on the T-shirt and shorts, I crawled beneath my covers and focused on Ben. I imagined sitting with him on our cozy deck, looking out on our backyard bursting with summer blossoms. I’d lean against him, and he’d put his arm around me. We’d argue about what to name our first baby. It would be easy and clean and right.

Or . . . it would have been.

Should I tell Ben what had happened? Didn’t I owe him honesty? I’d demanded it in the aftermath of his cover-up of what was really going on with him, so how could I possibly keep things from him with a clear conscience? But if I told him—if I told him
everything
—it would cut him deep. I’d never thought of the truth as a knife, but now I knew it was, able to sever muscle from bone, heart from heart. What had once been simple and right was tainted, and I couldn’t figure out if everything I’d done had been necessary, or if I had gone off the rails somehow.

I drew my knees to my chest, wishing this strange, unstable feeling would go away. Wishing for strong arms around me, a gentle voice in my ear that would tell me things were going to be okay. But I was alone in this mess, and somehow I had to push through.

I pressed my head into the pillow and cried myself to sleep.

I bolted upright, my heart galloping, my breaths coming in sharp, strangled gasps. I put my hand to my chest, where the stab of pain was still fading. Terror pulled me out of bed. My ears rang with it. My blood pounded in my skull. I couldn’t think. I could only act. I ran for the door. I had no idea what Asa’s room number was, but I was going to bang on every door on the fourth floor until he answered.

I burst into the hallway, turned for the stairwell, and tripped over a pair of long legs. I glimpsed a toolbox and duffel sitting against the wall as Asa caught me in his arms. He’d been sitting on the floor next to my door. He’d changed into a T-shirt and cargo shorts, with Converse sneakers on his feet. “Whoa, there,” he said in a groggy voice.

“I think it’s coming out,” I said, my voice cracking.

“What?” He guided me to my feet and held me by my upper arms.

“The magic. I felt a . . . a stabbing?” I couldn’t slow down my breathing, and my body was tingling. My lips had gone numb.

Asa’s brow furrowed, and he stuck his hand beneath the loose collar of my shirt. “Shh,” he said as I struggled, needing to run, needing to flee and never stop, because something terrifying was chasing me, and it was about to sink its teeth in. “Mattie, hold still. I just need to feel it.”

But I couldn’t. My heart felt as if it were about to explode. “It’s leaking out, isn’t it? All that Strikon magic—” And when it hit, it would tear me apart from the inside out.

Asa wrapped his arm around my waist and wrestled me into my room, then pushed me against the wall, pinning me there. “Dammit. Stay still, Mattie.
Stop.
”

“Please please please—”

He clamped his hand over my mouth and bowed his head, tucking his hand beneath the hem of my shirt this time. His calloused palm pressed against my ribs. His whole body was jammed against mine, just trying to hold me still. He was shaking with the effort, or maybe with trying to concentrate despite my desperate thrashing. But a moment later, he raised his head. “It’s not leaking. I think you’re having a panic attack.”

“No, that’s not it,” I said between creaky gasps for air.

“Mattie, you are so strong. I can barely feel this magic inside you, and if it was somehow trickling out, I would definitely know. When it was in the relic, I felt sick, like it was eating my bones the longer I was close to it.” He took my face in his hands, forcing me to look up at him. “But now that it’s in you, all of that is gone. I can barely feel it at all. That’s how strong you are.”

“But I can’t hold it. It’s going to break inside me. I know it. I can feel it. It’s going to kill me.”

“Then you have to focus on containing it. You have to relax and let your mind rest. Let your body do its thing.”

“I can’t!” My mind was reeling. Guilt or necessity, honesty or a lie to protect the innocent, the way I knew I would never be the same, the forbidden thoughts I couldn’t even admit I was having. It was all in my skull, jangling around. “I can’t turn it off. Everything that happened, everything I did—”

“What did you do?”

I closed my eyes because he wouldn’t let me turn my head. “You know. You saw me.”

“Really? I thought that was Eve,” he said gently.

“Eve,” I whispered. And I remembered letting Mattie go, putting her away just so I could get through everything.
Eve
had given herself to Asa. Eve had submitted and let him be in control. And he had accepted her submission, because he was strong enough, because he knew what to do, and because he was the only one who could do it.

I desperately needed him to do it right now. I couldn’t carry the burden of guilt and sorrow and loss and shame for another second. “Asa?” I sniffled and wiped at my wet cheek. “Can I . . .” I let out a hitching breath. “Can I be Eve right now?” I hazarded a glance at his face, not even sure he would know what I meant.

He stepped back, allowing some space between us. “That’s what you want?”

I nodded. “Only for a little while. I need . . .” My face crumpled. I needed help. I needed someone to take care of me. But accepting that from Asa felt so complicated now. He’d been right—putting this magic inside me was threatening to break me . . . just not in the way I’d imagined. “Can you just take over for a few hours? I’m so . . . I
can’t
. It’s too much.”